He Did It: Former WWE Writer Reveals Surprising Original Plan For “Who Ran Over Austin”

They had a special plan. There have been countless storylines throughout WWE’s history but only a handful of them are memorable. Oftentimes they are tied together to a special or important moment and then there are all kinds of way to go with it. One of the most interesting ways is a whodunit, and it turns out that one of the most famous in company history originally had a very different way to go.

Back in 1999, Steve Austin was run over by a car in the parking lot at Survivor Series. A whodunit mystery took place over the next several months, with Rikishi finally being revealed as the driver. According to former WWE Head Writer Brian Gerwitz on the Ariel Helwani Show, several other people were considered to be the driver at one point. On one occasion, Vince McMahon decided on Taz being the driver of the car, only to change his mind later. Taz had yet to debut for the company at Survivor Series 1999, debuting with the company two months later at the 2000 Royal Rumble.

There is a lot here. Check out the full interview:

Opinion: This is the kind of thing that can be fascinating to hear about as it is a new detail about a story from over twenty years ago. What makes it interesting is that Taz is someone who could have fit into the spot rather well and gotten a huge push out of it. If nothing else, he felt more like a villain that Rikishi and avoids the “I did it for the Rock” explanation, which never quite fit.

What did you think of the plan? Who would you have had as the driver? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 60,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 6,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his- Amazon author page with 30 wrestling books.

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